Former Disney artist Dave Woodman shared a few trivia about the movie I hadn't heard before.

Dave Woodman wrote:

Around Los Angeles in 1989, there was a billboard showing a beautiful photo of a woman who had come out of the water, and flipped her hair back. Some kind of advertisement for a spa or resort. I'm not the only one who remembers this billboard and noticed the image appearing in The Little Mermaid. Phyllis Diller once told me, "It's all right to be influenced by somebody", when I looked sheepish about having my work compared to Hirschfeld. Also, my high school art teacher told me, "Nothing is truly original". Everything comes from somewhere. I've searched for a copy of that billboard, seemingly forgotten, while The Little Mermaid shall be enjoyed years after I am gone.

After Triton gives Ariel her legs, she suddenly is wearing a dress and no shoes. If you look closely, when she first emerges, you can see sea foam around her. There just wasn’t time to make it more obvious that her dress is made of sea foam.

The backstory is that King Triton and Ursula are siblings. Ursula wasn't originally an octopus; she was cursed and banished for her behavior. Lee Crowe drawing where she worked out the details before creating her final line drawing of King Triton.

The 30th Anniversary logo is perfect to me as a stylized version of Ariel, not on-model.

Wow, so Ariel's hairflipping was inspired by something! Well, I always like to think most things are original, just in small ways. It's very interesting to me they had the idea of Ursula not always being an octopus and being a mermaid before, but turned. And the whole multiplane slugs really interests me. They were my favorite part of "Under the Sea" as a little kid and still are, and to learn they had to draw on huge paper to achieve it! Did they have to do it on huge paper for every multiplane since Disney's beginning?

Ariel coming out of the sea is one of the most iconic shots from the film so nice to get some background info on that.

I always thought it was obvious that Ariel's dress at the end was created from seafoam. Then again, there are plenty of people who think the dress is purple just because of one shot in the film, even though because of the angle of the sun, her entire coloring is darker. Clearly the dress is blue in every other shot after.

I hope the live-action film will implement the sibling rivalry between Triton and Ursula like the musical did. Some of the early Little Mermaid books from 1990 somewhat alluded to this as well. Wish they had created a mermaid design for young Ursula although that probably would just be Vanessa with a tail.

As for Rasoul Azadani, if I'm correct, the antagonistic palace guard from Aladdin was named after him. Even though in the 90s, all promotional material spelled his name "Rasoul," his name is spelled "Razoul" now instead, even in the film's subtitles. Wonder why the spelling was changed.

It's bittersweet though to hear that TLM was the last time the multiplane camera was used.

I would never guess her dress is made out of sea foam. That's so nice and fitting!

Neither would I. My favorite part about the scene of her rising up in that dress is how there's still the lingering magic from Triton surrounding her in the water, only white/silver at that point instead of gold.

Re-posting, because I just had another thought: If they had followed the plot of Ursula having been cursed to look the way she does, I suppose the climax would have had to have her restoring herself to her original form once she regained the trident. That would've been cool if her form changed right as she crowned herself, but I wonder if the fact that Ursula would've been much less intimidating if she turned into a mermaid right there when the action began was the reason they nixed the idea. The original plot of Ursula and Eric fighting over the trident definitely wouldn't have been feasible with a mermaid Ursula. She could've still turned gigantic, but they probably thought they should just keep the character with one design only for consistency's sake, especially since she already changes form once in the film.

I like how she answered the question. And that Blu-ray extra looks quite interesting. Thanks for posting, farerb.

And I forgot to thank you for sharing all that trivia from artist Dave Woodman, Sotiris. It was really interesting. As someone in the comments of the link said, the fact that Ariel's dress was made of foam is a nice homage to the original fairytale's ending.

[Yeah. I remember using that GIF of Ariel opening the book near the end of POTW as part of my Student Teaching websites years ago. One of the big parts of Ariel's character is a desire for knowledge.

Oh I love that! I always like to incorporate Disney myself whenever I can. One time I had a power point project and one of the sections was on either church or the Christian religion, so you can be sure that I used screencaps from God Helps the Outcasts. Ironically enough, my teacher despised Disney even though she loved Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and had some Winnie the Pooh and Tigger memorabilia on her desk that was from the Disney versions, not the classic ones.

Oh I love that! I always like to incorporate Disney myself whenever I can. One time I had a power point project and one of the sections was on either church or the Christian religion, so you can be sure that I used screencaps from God Helps the Outcasts. Ironically enough, my teacher despised Disney even though she loved Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and had some Winnie the Pooh and Tigger memorabilia on her desk that was from the Disney versions, not the classic ones.

My favorite teacher in high school (the one that had inspired me to become a teacher) disliked Disney movies, too. I can't remember the exact way he described them when he referred to them in class once. Something about how they were idyllic fantasies for the masses or something; I can't remember what we had been talking about to get off onto the subject. I mean, he wasn't wrong, but there are great things about Disney films, too.

My favorite teacher in high school (the one that had inspired me to become a teacher) disliked Disney movies, too. I can't remember the exact way he described them when he referred to them in class once. Something about how they were idyllic fantasies for the masses or something; I can't remember what we had been talking about to get off onto the subject. I mean, he wasn't wrong, but there are great things about Disney films, too.

That reminds me of the Zootopia line when Judy's boss references "Let it Go" to her. In my case, my teacher was a history teacher so she felt Disney bastardizes history. I tried to convince her that even if she hates Pocahontas the film, she ought to give the sequel a chance lol since that more directly follows historical events.

When I was working for the Bagdasarians, Ron [Dias] was doing freelance for us. When the VHS cover was released everyone was talking about it. Ron came by to drop off some work, and I knew he was mad at Disney for not getting to work on Little Mermaid, so I asked if he had seen it. He said not only had he seen it, he painted it...Disney asked him to paint the cover at the last minute. He only had a weekend to do it and had to work until the wee hours of the morning to finish it on time. He was kind of punchy from lack of sleep towards the end and decided he'd put a little joke in it for himself, if you know what I mean.

He woke up Monday morning and looked at it with fresh eyes and said to himself, "Ohmigosh! That isn't as subtle as I intended it to be... it isn't subtle at all!" But his appointment with the production person at Disney was at 10am, so he didn't have time to revise it. He dashed to the meeting and delivered the painting and pointed it out to the woman and offered to revise it for free. She said that there was a meeting of execs that afternoon to review the cover and she would let him know if he needed to revise it.

Ron didn't hear back for a week and he was sweating that he might have offended them and would never work for Disney again, so he called the production lady and asked if they wanted him to revise it. She said no, the executives approved the cover as is. She said she pointed it out to them and relayed his offer to revise it, but they liked it just as it was. Ron shrugged his shoulders and said, "If they don't care, I guess I don't either." Disney gave him the lead stylist job on the Little Mermaid TV show around that time, so I guess they were happy with it. Maybe it sold more copies that way.

I can't believe Jodi got death threats! Is it for "Kiss the Girl"'s lyrics? Is it working for the company with "the phallus" cover? What is it for?

I never realized that Ariel may have read things from the human world. I thought she learned all human words from Scuttle. If Ariel could really read human words, it does give the question why didn't she write to Eric? Even only saying that she was the girl who rescued him and she lost her voice, and not mentioning that she was a mermaid and lost her voice to a sea witch? But it is true she has a thirst for knowledge and that is a big part of her character!

I can't believe Jodi got death threats! Is it for "Kiss the Girl"'s lyrics? Is it working for the company with "the phallus" cover? What is it for?

I never realized that Ariel may have read things from the human world. I thought she learned all human words from Scuttle. If Ariel could really read human words, it does give the question why didn't she write to Eric? Even only saying that she was the girl who rescued him and she lost her voice, and not mentioning that she was a mermaid and lost her voice to a sea witch? But it is true she has a thirst for knowledge and that is a big part of her character!

The book revelation surprised me but we do see her holding a book in her grotto so I suppose she could do more than look at possible pictures in them. I'm guessing this is how she learned the word "burn" rather than from Scuttle. I imagine she would read a lot in the human world as well to get caught up on being a human.

Ariel being able to read doesn't necessarily mean she could write, although that is shaky logic. Honestly, it's a difficult plot hole to get by because then you also have to consider just what language do the merpeople speak. It seems unlikely that they would have the exact same language as the human world, let alone what Eric's kingdom speaks, yet Ariel can understand him and eventually speak to him. I used to think that maybe Atlantica is like Atlantis fallen into the sea and thus everyone underwater would speak some form of Greek and the reason Ariel and Eric can understand each other is because Eric's kingdom is also Greek.

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